Yes, this is serious request. I'm a generally happy SP2 owner except that
* it's too thick
* it falls off of my lap, unstable for typing
* the touchpad sucks on all of the keyboards (in fact, in my opinion the original type cover was the best)
* it's a bit too heavy to use as a tablet
* the screen is awkwardly shaped for tablet use
* the screen is just a bit too small to use without an external monitor
* I have the slower (4200) i5 processors, and while I'm not a gamer I do run a lot of intensive calculation programs (no GPU load, just processor). so the i7 would be a nice upgrade
* almost out of space on the 256GB disk, could use a half terabye

So I would seem the perfect candidate for SP3 as it fixes all of those problems. But I am worried about the following things:

* I really care about battery life. I usually run my SP2 in power-saver mode and easily get 7-8 hours. I hear that the SP3 realistically gets 4-5 hours. This is not encouraging.
* I had an SP3 for a few days and found that the fan spun up even while using Office and doing simple stuff. SP2 fan only comes on with multiple monitors or when doing intensive number crunching. plus the SP3 fan was more noticeable.
* lots of horror stories about SP3 getting super hot. even saw a video of someone who runs a box fan in the background to keep the processor from throttling. so would it be faster in practice than my 4200 i5? I dunno.

it's tax-free weekend in my home state, and MSFT has this $150 deal for educators, so I would like to decide by this weekend.

I suppose I could buy it and try it and then take it back if it's a disaster, keeping the SP2 around just in case I revert. I really hate the idea of sticking with the "old" model, though part of me thinks it might be smart to hold out for the Broadwell version which hopefully won't have the same heat problems.

4-5 hours battery life? not sure where you got that from, once I turned of background notifications I easily get 7 hours average.

I use office all day and it doesn't get hot and I used office for data crunching, again it does it fine.

Some users have had issues with heat, but mostly they are using it for gaming or heavy video editing. I don't so I am not really familiar with this issue. It only heats up for me when I use Flash, but Flash heats up any device.

Buy it, worst case you can return it after 30 days, MS doesn't make it difficult.

There are claims all over the forum of 4-5 hours with SP3. This is reported on several sites as well. As many have said I'd you can operate with notifications turned off, brightness turned to 45% or less, and maybe other tweaks, you CAN get near those numbers. Obviously your use will determine the battery life. I have to have notifications and prefer a brightness of 65% or greater, so I have to settle with 4-5 hours of battery life.

Just be aware of the good and the bad and make your decision. I think the good outweighs the bad and decided it was worth it so far.

To the OP: I felt the same way about the SP2 when I had it for less than a month and then heard about the new specs for the SP3 that would fix all the things I didn't like about it.

Now having the SP3, I have run the device for over 8 hours (using a dock and dual monitors) and had 32% left on the battery. The screen is so much nicer to use in both modes, and the new touchpad is worlds better than the SP2 one.

Essentially, questions like the one posed by the OP are unanswerable. Just think about it - if I can convince you to buy the SP3 (or indeed anything else), I can also probably convince you of anything! Not a likely proposition, that, is it?

At the end of the day, the OP will need to work out that balance between cost, expectations and utility and assessments like these are personal considerations.

To the OP: I felt the same way about the SP2 when I had it for less than a month and then heard about the new specs for the SP3 that would fix all the things I didn't like about it.

Now having the SP3, I have run the device for over 8 hours (using a dock and dual monitors) and had 32% left on the battery. The screen is so much nicer to use in both modes, and the new touchpad is worlds better than the SP2 one.